SOROTG STANDS TO FIGHT

'Here, you black bastard/ shouts the British
N.C.O., to a carrier, seeing that both numbers i and
2 guns are out of action and destroyed for lack of
water. cWhat you do with water?'

4This man drink 'em, sar. I look 1m/ says an
officer's boy.

It is true. Some of the Maxim gun carriers had
surreptitiously drunk the water out of guns i and 2.
Water Is scarce. The officer, not knowing, opened
fire. Result—-two melted barrels! Moral —"watch
the water In the desert.5

Later, each carrier concerned receives forty-eight
cuts with a bularla, or sjambok, while piercing
shrieks resound above the jabber of the voices of
victory, and are ordered to pay for new barrels —
an expensive drink of water! Luckily the jamming
of the two guns made little difference.

Soon all was calm. Faithful slaves died by the
score round .the mystic green flag of the Emir —
who flees. Officers run out to capture this flag and
'finish off5 the wounded with sporting rifles.

Peebles grabs the flag, and, stripping it, slips it
through his wallet straps.

Charles and I mooch around among the dead bodies
seeing If there's anything worth having on them.

*A poor lot!' says Charlie. 'I wonder if that anklet
is Ashanti gold? Here, orderly, cut that foot off with
your adda and take off the anklet/

149